Fresno Police Chief Mindy Casto said the official toxicology report for Fresno City Council candidate Naindeep Singh came back negative for any drug use.

The announcement comes only hours after Casto said her department would request expedited results from a blood test taken from Singh the night of his arrest. At that news conference, she told reporters that if the results came back negative for drugs, she would apologize for the mess the arrest caused his campaign.

At the same news conference, Casto defended the officer who pulled Singh over for expired tags, administered field sobriety and breathalyzer tests, and arrested him on suspicion of DUI. Singh’s breathalyzer test came back negative.

Casto said officers’ judgment in the field is not an exact science and that police sometimes have to make decisions on the spot.

“I would much rather call and apologize to him than call and tell a mother or a father that their child’s been killed by a DUI driver,” Casto said.

Shortly after the police announcement, Singh held his own news conference, where he said he appreciated calls from Casto and Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer but maintained that media reports had damaged his reputation. He also said he believed political opponents within City Hall leaked the story to defame him.

“During that conversation they also confirmed with me what I knew from the beginning — I was not driving under the influence of any drugs,” Singh said. “I was not driving under the influence of any drugs. I appreciate their personal outreach, their apologies, and their willingness to acknowledge what happened. However, the damage caused by false rumors and misleading allegations, something so many of us Fresnans have experienced, cannot be ignored.”

While Singh took questions from reporters, he declined to answer many of them beyond saying those were questions “for another day.”

Field Sobriety Test Not Often Wrong: Casto

Casto said she received verbal notification from the private lab contracted by the Police Department that Singh tested negative for all drugs.

Dyer said he was “extremely disappointed with the untimely and unfortunate arrest of Fresno City Council candidate Naindeep Singh.”

“Although I am confident the arresting officer acted in good faith, believing he had probable cause to make the arrest, the resulting pain and embarrassment caused to Mr. Singh and his family are regrettable,” Dyer said in a statement to the media.

After reviewing body camera footage and the police report, Casto said she still stands by the officer’s decision to pull Singh over and request official bloodwork.

She said it is uncommon for a failed field sobriety test, such as Singh’s, not to correspond with a positive test for either drugs or alcohol.

Casto said she could think of only one other recent instance in which a failed field sobriety test did not result in a positive drug or alcohol test.

“We made 2,400 DUI arrests or so last year. We’ve made almost 2,000 so far this year. And sometimes it’s going to happen, and that’s why it’s so important to remember innocent until proven guilty,” Casto said.

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